Poetry by Mary Mackey

A Visitor's Guide To The Favelas Of Rio

Rocinha, Mangeira, Morro de Macacos
up on the hills they are casting the shells
O côro das vozes femininas cantando
looking into the future rattling the buzios
pasting dyed chicken feathers on Carnival floats
beheading dogs smoking crack burning
the buses não esperam a noite

in Cantagalo, Serrinha, Salguiero
they are calling on Xangô the warrior Eshu
who opens and closes roads Oshun who eats
acarajé cooked with palm oil thick as sewage
orange as longing

here on the beach the waves rush toward us
bruising our legs and sucking us in
tem cuidado beware of the undertow

Babalônia, Cajuiero, Tavares Bastos
Morro Azul, Jacarezinho, Cidade de Deus
gunfire rattles off the cinderblock houses
there are dead roses in the water
gold-wrapped candy papayas gum

who made these offerings?
what gods do they pray to?
when will we meet them?
what will they want?

Sugar Zone

Sempre me amedrontou I have always
been afraid tankers strung out along the horizon
like a necklace of black
seeds a idéia de ter um filho of the idea
of having a child let's get drunk
on cachaca forget her outstretched
hands her face the delicate angle of her nose
her children selling candy roses cor de pedras
color of stones amethyst, emerald, diamond
all day the tankers come and go the mill grinds
barefoot men and women cut
and cut

for a whole week I missed Solange
Durante uma semana mes equeci
then clarity for three days
limpeza limpeza
they sleep on the
black and white tiles that wind beneath our feet
steal the food off our plates
We eat behind fences
the ticks drop off the
trees and settle between our cold beer
and cashews plastic straws blow down the beach
like transparent wands a ciudade só voltarava a existir
depois de 20 de janeiro (this city has only existed
since the 20th of January) for twenty minutes we
stood in the deserted street
figuei olhando looking
for something
no longer
there

The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams

Up on the Orinoco, Rio Negro, Solimões,
Tocantins, Xingu, Javary
they're drinking the bebida preta/black drink
snake vine ayahuasca/yage/ blood of the great anaconda
with the smoke of burning rainforests in their nostrils
and o gosto de cinzas/taste of ashes on their tongues

Eles estão comendo they're eating
purple snails powdered viper venom
lagartas esmagadas flowers that dye their lips
the color of blood singing of cities of blue glass
and the jaguars that prowl our dreams

O que mais/what else are they seeing?
o que mais do they know?

they're not saying
they're not telling
they're calling on the ghost tribes instead

ghosts of the Tupinambá, Tupinaquim, Amoré
lost upriver forever
lost in the burning world

The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position No. 2

should I greet you
as if
we had merely eaten
together one night
when the white birches
dripped wet
and lightning etched
black trees on your walls?

it is not love
I am asking

love comes from years
of breathing
skin to skin
tangled in each other's dreams
until each night
weaves another thread
in the same web
of blood and sleep

and I have only
passed through you quickly
like light
and you have only
surrounded me suddenly
like flame

the lake is cold
the snows are sudden
the wild cherry bends
and winter's a burden

in your hand I feel
spring burn in the bud.

Copyright, Mary Mackey 1987
From "The Dear Dance of Eros"

NET Surfing 2:00 A.M.

in the great invisible electronic
library of the world
the real thing is nothing
image is all

bleary with coffee
and grief for a friend
who died the day before
I find myself staring at the screen and wondering
how many pixels it takes
to make a wood duck
or an island of black frigate birds
mating in the mangroves
their globed orange throat pouches
pulsing with birdly lust

in front of me
in a space no larger than two hands spanned
I can watch flocks of pink flamingos
migrating
stick-legged, silly-beaked
bits of egg-laying confetti
left over from the big party
of creation

there's a comfort to the sight
of so many birds. Here at least,
I think,
life out-runs extinction

once in Cambridge
in the Peabody Museum
I came across the last passenger pigeon
ever sighted in America
neatly stuffed
with combed feathers and agate eyes
sitting on a fake limb in a glass case
under a card which informed me
that it had been shot
by the Harvard expedition of 1893

once I read
that Audubon himself
killed to sketch

now
in front of me
electronic snow geese
by the thousands
swirl over the marshes
of the Central Valley
now in one night
I can see
more cranes and herons
than ever fled south
before the snows of winter

I touch the screen with my fingertips
taste it with my tongue
how cold this tiny window is
that drugs me with perpetual flight
on tapes and chips and CD-ROM
the programmers have recreated paradise
and yet . . .

I pause, consider, and decide:
I strike a key
I click the mouse
I let myself forget
the crossed out phone number
the returned mail
the name he no longer answers to
the silent woods
the long darkness
the quiet
empty
sky.

Copyright, Mary Mackey 1998